I'm getting the same emerge package rebuilds over and over. No matter how many times I rebuild these, they pop right back up again the next time I run the emerge command shown below. I know this is because of some kind of sub-slot changes, but I cannot figure out exactly what is triggering it. I did run emerge with the --ignore-built-slot-operator-deps=y switch and they disappear, so I know sub-slot changes are causing it. Can anybody point me in the right direction here so I can track down what is causing this?

Well, for right now, I've put the --ignore-built-slot-operator-deps=y option into my EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS variable in my make.conf. And that "fixes" the problem, but I have the feeling that it's not really fixed. I've considered opening a bug, but I really don't know if portage is exhibiting proper behavior or not, since I have no idea what specific package or packages are triggering the problem. I'm open to any suggestions, since I'm out of ideas.

[12:27] <Tommy[D]> slyfox: no, if you see a package in @world, which will require a rebuild due to subslot changes on update, portage will do those rebuilds even when you dont update that package with subslot change and, since the update did not happen, again and again

I had the same problem caused by libpng, I had added an updated one to my keywords, it went away due to an upgrade for libpng, world update wanted to emerge same packages over and over, I discovered libpng when I went package by package to solve it.

Thank you both, dol-sen and thumper. I get it now...you both provided just the hints I needed and it solved the problem. And yes, thumper, it was libpng for me as well. I know where to start looking when this happens again.

Few: thanks for the links. I had found one of those bugs previously and applied the change to increase output, but did not get any new messages for the loop I was seeing. I missed the bug where you changed the logic to handle the mixed >= / < requirements.